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According to CNSNews.com, a new 78,000 square foot abortion facility is being opened by Planned Parenthood in Houston, Texas. The center will also have a wing for performing late-term abortions.

According to the Wikipedia entry on late-term abortions, there is no general consensus on what specifically classifies as a “late-term abortion,” with them sometimes being referred to as an abortion occurring after 20 weeks, 16 weeks, and sometimes even 12 weeks. 20+ weeks is the most common.

Late term abortions are opposed by many even more strongly than a “regular” abortion because of the fact that the baby is even more developed and is sometimes even viable, meaning it could live in the outside world.

The basic argument between those who support abortions and those who oppose them is the issue of whether or not a “fetus” is actually a “life.” Many then argue about when “life” begins. Many find it easier to abort a baby earlier because it looks less like a baby.

rendition of 10 week baby from www.babycenter.com

However, for example, take a look at the picture to the right. This is a rendition of a baby’s development at 10 weeks. You will see that obviously it has a head, arms, legs, and if you saw a video of an ultrasound at this stage you would see it moving its arms and legs around like a newborn baby would.

If an abortion were performed at this stage, it would not even be considered a late-term abortion.

Again according to the Wiki page on late-term abortions, a study was performed in 1987 by the Alan Guttmacher Institute. They collected questionnaires from 1,900 women in the US who had abortions. 420 of them were over 16 weeks pregnant (keep the image above in mind). These women were asked why they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies.

71% Woman didn’t recognize she was pregnant or misjudged gestation

48% Woman found it hard to make arrangements for abortion

33% Woman was afraid to tell her partner or parents

24% Woman took time to decide to have an abortion

8% Woman waited for her relationship to change

8% Someone pressured woman not to have abortion

6% Something changed after woman became pregnant

6% Woman didn’t know timing is important

5% Woman didn’t know she could get an abortion

2% A fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy

11% Other

I don’t have the studies in front of me but I’m sure that many more abortions occur now than were occurring in 1987. Note that 2% were because of a “fetal problem” and only potentially 11% (the Other category, it was not even specified enough to have its own category) could have been because of a health threat for the mother, which is often used as a reason why it is evil and outrageous to make abortions illegal.

Some states have bans on late-term abortions, some have exceptions for threats to mothers health, etc. Some even have laws that require a second doctor to be in the room in case the baby was born alive (I guess they mean if it accidentally wasn’t killed). I’m not sure why there is a difference between killing a baby inside the mother and killing a baby that just came out of the mother. I’d actually be interested in hearing that explanation from a pro-abortion person.